


the fall

by aosc



Series: Aeternitas [1]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 10:19:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15117332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: “Patience is a virtue, Samuel,” Rafe murmurs.“Yeah, well, I ain’t especially virtuous,” Sam says, “I save that for decent, honest folk.”





	the fall

* * *

 

While Samuel Drake is never part of anyone’s equation – and, if Rafe knows the guy any, he thinks he’d prefer to always keep it that way – he has an uncanny knack for constantly presenting himself as, if not key to the solution, at least as a part of it.

 

Rafe hadn’t meant to give him any unnecessary attention to stoke his fire, much less bring him cross any continent. But, Samuel Drake, he figures, is the simplest answer to why he’s done both, not just in measures, but in spades.

 

Samuel, or Sam, is a petty thief with a head for dead languages and a knack for getting himself into far more trouble than he’s worth. He’s also a name in the circles Rafe would like to squeeze into without exerting too much monetary influence.

 

It seems easy, at first; a dinner reservation among the marble pillars and linen spreads of the Delano. Rafe had worn understated Dior, foregone cufflinks but brought in a vintage merlot for the main course. Sam comes along looking suitably roguish, in a faded short sleeve shirt, leaf printed and contrasting to his turn of the century Levi’s. He orders a beer, despite the wine, and appears charmed.

 

“Tell me somethin,” he says, pulling up on his words, a slow drawl, “Why’re you doin this?”

 

Maybe he should hold on his words some, but it’s also easy to say, rocking his glass gently, leaned into his chair, “Because I can do it, of course.”

 

“Ah,” Sam replies, almost more air than words. His shoulders are slightly sunken in relaxation, and once he gets truly going with a story, he displays a tendency to put his elbows on the table. Sam couldn’t act above his birth if he wanted to, Rafe thinks, and that alone should’ve put him on the outside of the sandbox they’re playing in.

 

“You always go big, or d’you adjust accordingly depending on who’s your target?”

 

“Are you becoming self conscious, Mr. Drake?” Rafe asks.

 

Sam’s smile betrays nothing. Maybe not such a bad actor after all, he thinks, filing it away for later. “Let me just say I’m aware of my limitations. Monetary, as well as – otherwise.”

 

“Huh,” Rafe says, “Is that so.”

 

“You can get pretty far on that,” Sam says, his parting words, it turns out. His phone buzzes, audible across the table despite how it’s stuffed down the front pocket of his jeans. “Sorry,” he says, pulling his chair out. He doesn’t answer until he’s well out of Rafe’s earshot.

 

“We’ll have to do this again,” he says when he returns.

 

He leaves a local number scrawled on the back of one of the hotel cards. It’s just on the side of tacky to make Rafe scowl, his impatience cracking through how he’d kept telling himself that he’ll need this. Play it smart. This is the long con.

 

*

 

He meets Sam a couple of more times with the flimsy excuse of wanting to pick his brains on fifth century Mongolian treasures, only coming away surface knowledge and a distinct lack of progress made for his troubles. Sam is slippery, evasive without appearing to play the part. He smiles widely, flirts heavily, but leaves without giving away any more than he can without making himself complicit to actually letting anything of value slip.

 

Rafe tires, throws the crumpled card stacked with Sam’s scrawly digits on it in a fit of anger, and goes for the only other connection he has. He admits that this one’s worse; Harry Flynn is Australian and exiled from his own country, which says more about him than Rafe necessarily needs to know, and unfortunately, all he needs to know about what he’s like to deal with. Poshly British but rougher, capricious and evasive out of a sense of carefully groomed paranoia.

 

What’s worse is that he goes all the way to Harry, and comes away only with a circle back to where he began.

 

Rafe stares at the small piece of paper stuck beneath his bottomed out Corona. He looks up at Harry, quelling the urge to throw something in close vicinity. “You’re sure?” he asks, bitten together, “That this is the best there is?”

 

Harry smirks, if it’s because he knows Rafe’s already gone down that road already and close to failed, or not, he unfortunately can’t tell. “Mate,” he says, “I'm not asking what you want them for, but whatever it is – trust me. Sam – the older one, he's got a knack for these kinds of things, yeah?"

 

Santa Margherita is breezy, but hot, and condense runs slick down the nape of his beer. He takes a long, slow gulp under the pretense of thinking, even if it is mostly to refrain from saying something that’ll come back to bite him later. Harry leans forward on his elbows. “I’ll let you in on something about those boys, though.”

 

Rafe quirks an eyebrow. Harry’s expression mirrors it – but in it there's always a sense of control, a type of holier than thou-sense of assuredness, that rubs Rafe the wrong way. “Look. I like your resume. Black market’s a shark tank, and you've got a decent eye for what’s going, and what’s not. But the Drakes are – they’re not in your business. They’re not brokering fancy renaissance celebrity hauls and fourteenth century tapestries, you’ve got to understand,” he pauses, and takes a quick swig of his own beer. He leans closer across the table. It rattles, unsteady legs on an unpolished floor. “They’re into legends. The grand stuff. Lost cities and Mayan gold. Y’know.”

 

“What you’re saying is?”

 

“‘S not always the stuff that pays off, is what I’m saying. From one friend to another.”

 

“Mm,” Rafe consents, curiosity piqued, a thought forming –

 

“But they’re the best you’ve got? From one friend – to another.”

 

Harry chuckles. He’s finished his beer. He rounds it up the curl of his palm, and stands from where he’s pushed his chair out. “Contact’s yours to do what you will with; I honestly couldn’t care less if the word’s spread. It’s a chance, but it’s the only decent one you’ll come away from here with.”

 

*

 

“Drake’s Antiquities, this is the senior partner speaking.”

 

Sam’s drawl is easily recognized, loose and relaxed-sounding. Rafe rolls his eyes, and says, “That flimsy cover is going to be the thing that gets you busted, one day.”

 

“Y’know,” Sam replies, “You’re a little bit incessant, which puzzles me, but it also kind of pushes you to the top of my list of favorite Raphaelites.”

 

“Was that the most horrible Raphael work-in joke I’ve ever heard?” Rafe says, realizing, surprised but fighting it, that it doesn’t serve to make him annoyed.

 

“I dunno,” Sam says, “You heard any other horrible Raphael jokes recently?”

 

“Thankfully, no,” Rafe says.

 

“Guess that’s why you keep comin back,” Sam says.

 

“It’s not for the sake of stroking your ego, in any case,” Rafe says. “I have a lead for a job. I could use a consultant for it.”

 

Sam hums. “A job,” he says.

 

“I’m not calling to ask you out,” Rafe says, careful not to let his temper bristle through, now that Sam’s working up to making it spill over.

 

“Pity,” he says, bland but warm, “Alright, I’ll bite. I’m kinda – occupied, though.”

 

Rafe angles the speaker of his phone away, unable to contain his sigh. He says, measured, “For how long?”

 

“If you’re anywhere close to Tulum, not long. If not, couple weeks, give or take.”

 

Rafe does the math quickly. Not that he necessarily needs to. Sadly, this is one he’ll take without much incentive given. “Give me an address and a contact. I’ll be there.”

 

*

 

He’d expected the man to be easier, somehow, to get into bed. But Sam’s resilient up until the very minute it happens, when Rafe has felt his patience erode over the course of months, over a charm offense he rarely puts on, over coy games and false pretenses. He thinks that this is a con man unlike most he’s met before, and Rafe’s well over the initial charm of cat and mouse-indulging him.

 

Rafe corners him in the desolate men’s bathroom of the bar they’ve met in. The Tulum afternoon heat is sticky, slick down Rafe’s neck and spine. He follows Sam minutely after he’s excused himself for a break. The door whines slightly when he shuts it, a little harder than he intends to, after himself.

 

Sam doesn’t pretend he’s surprised to see Rafe step up behind him in the mirror. He twists around, leans into the sink. His fingers are still wet, the tap still screwed on.

 

Rafe kisses him hard, bites on his bottom lip, and fits a thigh between Sam’s legs. Sam hums into his mouth, slicks his tongue against Rafe’s, and rolls his hips downwards slowly. Rafe bites down on a groan, but lets slip the, “Jesus,” that is the best manifestation of his thoughts.

 

Sam grins around his swollen bottom lip and white teeth. He says, “We could always continue this somewhere more – private.”

 

He’s lanky beneath the ill-fitting clothes he wears, tattooed across his bicep and up his ribs. Visibly scarred, and freshly cut, a couple of narrow lines scored down his thigh, once Rafe manages to unbuckle his belt and unfasten his jeans, shove the rough and dirty denim to his ankles.

 

He’s not sure why he had to be the guy whose daddy issues manifested in only managing to get painfully hard and panting for older guys with neither the sense to dress well nor shower on the regular. But he’s not one to cower from his flaws, so really, Rafe concentrates on the good parts of it: sinking to his knees in front of Sam as soon as he can, palming himself roughly while he swallows Sam down to the hilt, dick warm and twitching with precome already. He flattens his tongue along the underside, grinds his palm into himself once more before he also gets both hands on Sam; one on the back of a thigh, bunching muscle and strained skin beneath his palm. The other around the base of Sam’s cock, heavy and twitching. Sam breathes slowly, measuredly. He scratches a few blunt nails across Rafe’s scalp. “Christ,” he mutters, sounding a lot drunker than what a couple of beers worth of drinking would tell you.

 

Rafe swallows until he’s nearly gagging, embarrassingly enough enjoying himself on his knees, at someone’s mercy. Sam murmurs a steady stream of nonsense, encouragement and impersonal endearments. He keeps it up until Rafe scrapes his teeth across the leaking head of his cock, and pulls half off. Sam groans, full bodied like it’s been punched out of him, shudders on the point of convulsing. “Alright,” he breathes, “Enough, huh. Give a guy a minute. A breather.”

 

Rafe pulls off completely. His own arousal is a steady pinch of heat, low and shocking in his guts. He gives himself a final knead through his jeans. He reaches up to wipe at his mouth, and gets to his feet, careful to keep steady.

 

Sam wants Rafe to fuck him, which – Rafe would lie if he says he isn’t surprised at how he comes out and says it, splayed across the bed, flushed beneath his grimy tan, smirking lazily. “Toiletry bag’s to your left, big weekender,” he says, after, one hand tracking across his stomach.

 

“Don’t,” Rafe says, harsher than he expects from himself, though perhaps not than what he intends.

 

Sam cocks an eyebrow, but obeys. He digs three fingers into the cut of his own hip, runs his other hand through his stripy, sweaty fringe.

 

“Didn’t expect you to be – slow about it,” Sam says, between puffs of breath, once Rafe’s returned with a pump dispenser and a pack of condoms. He pushes Sam’s left leg up to bend, and pushes off the bed to undress after, taking in the sight of Samuel Drake, too elusive, too good at being precisely what he’d set himself up to be, neither more nor less, close to squirming in impatience.

 

“Patience is a virtue, Samuel,” Rafe murmurs, kneeling on the bed.

 

“Yeah, well, I ain’t especially virtuous,” Sam says, “I save that for decent, honest folk.”

 

“Now, that sounds like a cop out if I’ve ever heard one.”

 

“Honesty’s the one virtue I’m still clinging to.” Sam pushes himself up on his forearms. “C’mere,” he says.

 

Rafe ends up fitted into the splay of Sam’s hip, smearing his dick into Sam’s stomach while he scissors three fingers stretching him open. Sam grunts, shallowly thrusting down to meet him. “That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmurs, words slurred, “You’re doin fantastic.”

 

“That what you tell everyone who fucks you?” Rafe asks, pushing away a low churning pleasure that rears its head at Sam’s enthusiastic rambling, making way for all the sharpness he has left in him.

 

Sam chuckles. “You’re not feelin special enough?”

 

Rafe angles his fingers upwards, and says, “Don’t mock me, Samuel. That’s unbecoming in our current situation,” at the same time as Sam needles a “hah,” between his teeth, and bucks his hips.

 

*

 

Working together, as it turns out, is easier than Rafe expects. After the intensely dragged out foreplay leading up to their sort of-partnership, it’s certainly easier than he expects. And not least, and this is the most surprising part, when it comes to Sam playing the part he’s been assigned.

 

“It’s the Roland Garros after party,” Rafe says, fixing his gaze on the pin sharp strokes of Sam’s velvet blazer. He does the final button of his shirt up, and takes a step back. “At the hôtel Costes.”

 

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Right,” he says, “Well, a rich asshole party’s a rich asshole party. I’m just tagging along to provide arm candy and some much needed strategic lock picking.”

 

Rafe doesn’t bother containing his aggravated sigh. “Samuel: do you even know what it is we’re attending?”

 

“Nah,” Sam says. He adjusts his cuffs, “Hence being the plus one.”

 

“Right,” Rafe says, mostly for a lack of other things to say.

 

“Hey, look,” says Sam, “I’m a football guy, alright?”

 

“Right,” Rafe rolls his eyes, “Of course. Dan Marino.”

 

Sam winks. “Now we’re talkin.”

 

“As long as you can hold a pretty,” he pauses, for the moment’s sake, and strokes a thumb across Sam’s lower lip, “Smile – I can’t see how it should be a problem.”

 

Sam raises an eyebrow. Rafe holds still. “Course not,” Sam says, slightly muffled. He tips forward slowly, pushing until Rafe’s thumb’s wedged lightly in his right cheek. For the sake of his dignity, and only that, Rafe swallows against his quick breath. Ignores the sharp punch of arousal in his stomach.

 

Sam’s smile, around Rafe’s thumb, is slow, indulgent. He eventually pulls away. “Don’t we have a party to attend?”

 

*

 

“Shit,” Sam mutters, half cloaked in the dour light of the hallway, his hands aptly in the dark, twisting a pin into the slim fit between door and the key card read. “We’re lucky they picked the place with the worst artificial lightning in the entire city.”

 

“Wouldn’t need luck if you were actually good at what you’re doing,” Rafe mutters back, leaned against the wall in an attempt to, in the event of someone passing by, look flustered and appropriately manhandled. They’re lucky they are in Paris; no one here would actually bother them for what looks like a chance hook up in a high class hotel.

 

“That’s funny,” Sam replies. The door gives a distinct click, “Given I’m a consummate professional to my core.”

 

“Hilarious,” Rafe says, pushing off to follow him inside.

 

The room, also dark, lights up about as well in the flicker of Sam’s pocket light as it would have had they turned the lights on. The wallpaper, over the top stacked with print, along with the plush velvet décor and dark wood paneling, makes Rafe appreciate the modestly furnished apartment he’s leasing via the company that much more.

 

“The fact that this room costs somethin like six kay a week is the reason I tend to decline jobs that start in Paris.” Sam moves noiselessly from the door to the neighboring desk, cluttered artfully with dried roses in a tall vase, and two coffee table books.

 

“Less talking, Samuel,” Rafe says. The window is ajar, and the loud noise from the courtyard filters through, reassuring but ultimately faux. “We don’t have much time.”

 

“Yeah, no shit,” Sam says, pulling at drawers and delicately rifling through stacks of documents.

 

The target, a time and a place for the swap of information regarding the supposed uncovering of a shrine for Dīs Pater in the south of France, the innards of which is said to be valued at hundreds of millions, is easily copied. Sam, analogue to a fault, procures a thin sheaf of paper out of his own pocket, and stencils the details onto it before putting everything back precisely as it were.

 

He corners Rafe in the elevator down, presses the length of himself hot and heavy against him and kisses him wetly. Rafe holds his breath, acutely aware of the faint scramble of paper on the inside of Sam’s blazer, the promise of something to take, more than it’s a promise of getting paid for their troubles.

 

The lobby, once they emerge into it, is stacked with celebrities, and in the courtyard, people have taken to the tables. It’s decadent, packed and stale with cigarette smoke. Sam gestures inwards, already lighting a slim of his own, appearance like he belongs exactly where he is. “We got to mingle some, right?” he says, and hooks three long fingers in the crook of Rafe’s elbow.

 

Rafe bites his bottom lip, forcing himself to breathe through the urge to clench both hands into fists. Not only because it’s surprising to see Sam, uncultured, American and low brow, make a hole large enough to crawl into in any crowd – it’s also enraging. Mostly, maybe fully, because Rafe is never able to anticipate it.

 

*

 

The inside of the shrine is marbled, spit slick white and just veiny enough to be considered close to priceless, given its historic significance and deeply rooted religious connect. The altar is inlaid with stones, carved with words and filled out with a dull shine gold. Sam strokes three fingers across the first Latin inscription. His breath is quiet, and he stays for a bit.

 

“I guess it checked out,” Rafe murmurs, half in spite, and half just to say something, break the thickly laid on worship that settles over the dig site.

 

“Guess so,” Sam replies. He’s quiet for a spell, and says, after, “Shame that it won’t make us any money, though.”

 

He’s right; it’s too much of it to move, and to blow it up and reshape it into little pieces to haul will reduce pretty much all of its value to rubble, literally and metaphorically.

 

Rafe’s warmed to when Sam proves to be right, but not enough so that it doesn’t stick on the back of his neck, a pinprick of annoyance. “There are other pros to it, apart from profit.”

 

Sam snorts. “Comes from the guy whose net worth beats the entirety of the Catholic Church, but sure.”

 

“Is that jealousy?” Rafe says.

 

“No,” Sam says, “It’s disdain.”

 

“Oh, of course.”

 

“That’s what it’s called.”

 

“You’re not blue collar, Samuel, so stop acting like you’re offended.”

 

“For the sake of my heritage,” Sam says, “I am a little bit offended.”

 

“You’re a thief,” Rafe points out.

 

“Yeah, well, I’m Robin Hood in this simile. You can be both a thief and offended at the privilege afforded some.”

 

“Naturally. Well, since you’re the patron saint of giving back to the community, would you do me the honor of being the one to call the intendant of the musée des antiquités nationales?”

 

Sam pins him with a glare. He makes the call.

 

 _It’s the long con_ , Rafe thinks, as he watches the lines of Sam’s back in the dour light, disappearing towards the maw of the excavation site. And the end of that long con, almost in sight now.

 

*

 


End file.
